Short and Long Term Effects of Horror Films on Children
By: Sarah Wen
Citation:
Hoekstra, S., Harris, R., & Helmick, A. (1999). Autobiographical Memories About theExperienceof Seeing Frightening Movies in Childhood. Media Psychology, 1(2), 117. Retrieved from Ebscohost database.
The researchers in this article are Hoekstra, Harris, and Helmick. Their purpose of this study was to find out the amount of information their participants were able to recall from their childhood horror movies. This is a topic of interest because the researchers wanted to know the reason many people like to watch this genre by surveying participants of college students of their childhood. Also, this way they can if there are any long term effects to watching horror movies from childhood. Other than this study, there were other relevant studies done by Harrison and Cantor on the topic about media violence's short term effects on children and teen. this info is wrong!
The research questions they hope to answer from this study are: Are such memories common? What do people remember watching? What were circumstances surrounding the viewing experience? What do individuals remember about the psychological consequences of viewing? Is it possible to predict liking of scary movies in adulthood based on characteristics of memorable childhood viewing experiences?
The characteristics of the sample are freshmen colleges students of both male and female around the age of 19. The variables were the 4 types of empathy, different horror movies, circumstances at time of viewing, and effects after viewing as well as the age at the time of viewing. For circumstances at time of viewing, participants were asked if they watched the horror movie by themselves, with siblings, with friends or date, with parents, with group or other. Also, they were asked if it was their decision to choose this film or was it someone else's decision and they were asked where they saw it whether it was home, a friend's, a theater or other. This variable was tested to see if participants chose the movie themselves or through groups and friends because some people watch horror movies due to peer pressure. For another variable such as effects after viewing, participants were asked if they had general fear, wild imagination, specific fear, fear of sleeping alone, nightmares, insomnia, and sleeping with lights on after watching the horror movie. This variable was to see if any participants have any after affects of watching a horror movie during their childhood and what were they.
Basically, there were two studies done on the same group of people. The first study asked participants to freely recall the situation and the film during the time while the second study was to ask participants identify some information they remembered from the movie. The data was analyzed based on the percentage of male and female participants and to compare some variables between the two studies. However, the second study asked participants more detailed questions for recalling memory from the movie. The main findings from both studies were that participants can recall detailed information from the movie and from the surroundings at the time of viewing. Also, empathy seems to be the reason people are enjoying horror movies and age played a difference. The earlier the child was exposed to horror movies, the likelihood they are to like the genre in adulthood. After the studies, the new question is why even animated movies like "Beauty and the Beast" or "Aladdin" are feared by young children? As researchers agreed, more researches are needed to answer these questions.
After reading this article, I realized it's a lot of work to answer questions on a simple topic like this. There are so many variables needed to be consider before testing it out. Of course, there are sometimes limitations to studies like this one because it's hard to recall memory especially from childhood times and there may be biases to these circumstances where people may just fill in the gaps of missing information. However, the results were quite interesting and I am sure it's all worth it.
Short and Long Term Effects of Horror Films on Children
By: Sarah Wen
Citation:
Hoekstra, S., Harris, R., & Helmick, A. (1999). Autobiographical Memories About the Experience of Seeing Frightening Movies in Childhood. Media Psychology, 1(2), 117. Retrieved from Ebscohost database.
The researchers in this article are Hoekstra, Harris, and Helmick. Their purpose of this study was to find out the amount of information their participants were able to recall from their childhood horror movies. This is a topic of interest because the researchers wanted to know the reason many people like to watch this genre by surveying participants of college students of their childhood. Also, this way they can if there are any long term effects to watching horror movies from childhood. Other than this study, there were other relevant studies done by Harrison and Cantor on the topic about media violence's short term effects on children and teen. this info is wrong!
The research questions they hope to answer from this study are: Are such memories common? What do people remember watching? What were circumstances surrounding the viewing experience? What do individuals remember about the psychological consequences of viewing? Is it possible to predict liking of scary movies in adulthood based on characteristics of memorable childhood viewing experiences?
The characteristics of the sample are freshmen colleges students of both male and female around the age of 19. The variables were the 4 types of empathy, different horror movies, circumstances at time of viewing, and effects after viewing as well as the age at the time of viewing. For circumstances at time of viewing, participants were asked if they watched the horror movie by themselves, with siblings, with friends or date, with parents, with group or other. Also, they were asked if it was their decision to choose this film or was it someone else's decision and they were asked where they saw it whether it was home, a friend's, a theater or other. This variable was tested to see if participants chose the movie themselves or through groups and friends because some people watch horror movies due to peer pressure. For another variable such as effects after viewing, participants were asked if they had general fear, wild imagination, specific fear, fear of sleeping alone, nightmares, insomnia, and sleeping with lights on after watching the horror movie. This variable was to see if any participants have any after affects of watching a horror movie during their childhood and what were they.
Basically, there were two studies done on the same group of people. The first study asked participants to freely recall the situation and the film during the time while the second study was to ask participants identify some information they remembered from the movie. The data was analyzed based on the percentage of male and female participants and to compare some variables between the two studies. However, the second study asked participants more detailed questions for recalling memory from the movie. The main findings from both studies were that participants can recall detailed information from the movie and from the surroundings at the time of viewing. Also, empathy seems to be the reason people are enjoying horror movies and age played a difference. The earlier the child was exposed to horror movies, the likelihood they are to like the genre in adulthood. After the studies, the new question is why even animated movies like "Beauty and the Beast" or "Aladdin" are feared by young children? As researchers agreed, more researches are needed to answer these questions.
After reading this article, I realized it's a lot of work to answer questions on a simple topic like this. There are so many variables needed to be consider before testing it out. Of course, there are sometimes limitations to studies like this one because it's hard to recall memory especially from childhood times and there may be biases to these circumstances where people may just fill in the gaps of missing information. However, the results were quite interesting and I am sure it's all worth it.